An off-duty sheriff’s deputy and a bar employee prevented a potentially violent situation when they disarmed a man who brought an AR-15-type rifle to a downtown Redlands bar early Sunday, officials said.
The incident occurred at The District on Citrus Avenue and started when the suspect, identified as 36-year old Gilbert Manuel Arellano III of Redlands, became involved in an altercation with other customers, the Redlands Police Department said in a news release, Sunday, May 20.
He left the bar and went to his home in the 200 block of Nordina Street, retrieved an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and a loaded 30-round magazine.
Gilbert Arellano III (Courtesy of Redlands Police Department)
He returned downtown early Sunday morning, confronted three people in a parking lot and pointed the gun at one of them, police said.
Arellano then walked into The District holding the rifle in plain sight. He was stopped by a bar employee, who attempted to get the rifle away from Arellano. Moments later, an off-duty San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department Deputy came to help disarm and restrain the man after learning there was an armed man in the building, police said.
Redlands police arrived and took Arellano into custody on suspicion of attempted assault with a deadly weapon.
Prior to the incident at The District, Arellano had reportedly been drinking earlier Saturday, May 19, at a birthday party, police said.
Police later determined that Arellano had additional weapons registered to him and, by court order, was not allowed to possess any guns, police said.
Police served a search warrant on Arellano’s home, where they said they confiscated additional weapons Sunday afternoon.